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Ogilvy on Advertising
By David Ogilvy
Sarah Perry
JOMC 170 Book Report
July 18, 2006
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About the Author
David Ogilvy, born in 1911, was called by Time “the most sought after wizard in
the business.” Ogilvy was one of the three key individuals in the Creative Revolution,
along with Bill Bernbach and Leo Burnett. Before Ogilvy began advertising, he worked
with research giant George Gallup for 3 years (David Ogilvy: History). Ogilvy came
from the UK to start his agency Ogilvy & Mather. Starting with no clients in 1948, it has
since grown into a worldwide enterprise (Ogilvy.com). As successful as Ogilvy was, he
did it all with no college degree (Ogilvy 51). Some of Ogilvy’s most famous campaigns
were the Hathaway shirts which ran for 25 years, Schweppes, and Rolls-Royce. Ogilvy
wrote 3 books about advertising: Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963), Blood,
Brains, and Beer: The Autobiography of David Ogilvy (1978) and Ogilvy on Advertising
(1983). Ogilvy retired in 1971 and after his retirement, Ogilvy & Mather was purchased
by mega agency WPP in 1989 for $864 million (Ogilvy.com). Ogilvy died in 1999 but
his legacy in the advertising world will always be remembered.
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Abstract of Ogilvy on Advertising
In Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about all aspects of advertising.
He explains all the tips and rules he has learned about advertising through his own
experience and through looking at data. He mainly writes about the aspects of
advertising he knows from his own experience, particularly print advertising. In his
book, he states that he does oversimplify some complicated subjects, making it easy for
readers to understand. The book is broken down into 20 chapters, which all discuss
different aspects related to advertising. The division of chapters makes the book easy to
read. It does not read together like a whole book, but can be read just section by section
depending on what you want to learn.
First, Ogilvy examines how to produce advertisements that sell, jobs in
advertising, how to run an ad agency and how to get clients. Then he moves on to talk
about print advertising, making television commercials that sell, advertising corporations,
how to advertise foreign travel, business-to-business advertising, and direct mail.
Finally, he addresses research, marketing, and influential advertising people.
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Summary of Ogilvy on Advertising
In the beginning of his book, Ogilvy gives an overview of what he will be
discussing in this book. He opens his book with this statement: “I do not regard
advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I
write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you
to find it so interesting that you buy the product” (Ogilvy 7). He states that the only real
major change advertising has gone since he has been in the business is the television.
Other changes have been exaggerated such as the concept of brand names, which he
popularized in 1953. It was not really new though; Claude Hopkins had described in 20
years before.
Ogilvy first examines how to produce advertising that sells. He states that the
wrong advertising can actually reduce the sales of a product. All advertising does not
increase sales to some degree. He then gives the steps he has for producing successful
advertising:
1. Do your homework. When he wrote the Rolls-Royce ad, the most famous of all
automobile ads, he spent three weeks doing his homework.
2. Find out what kind of advertising the competitors have been doing for similar
products, and with what success.
3. Research among consumers. Find out how they think about your kind of product
and what promise would be most likely to make them buy your brand.
4. Decide how to position your product. He defines positioning as “what the product
does, and who it is for.” (Ogilvy 12). He positioned Dove as a toilet bar for
women with dry skin and still works 25 years later.
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5. Decide the Brand Image. Image means personality- the name, packaging, price,
style of its advertising, and most importantly, the nature of the product itself.
Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the brand image.
The advertisements should project the same image, year after year which is
difficult to achieve.
6. Invent big ideas. Big ideas come from the unconscious, which has to be well
informed. Ways to help recognize a big is idea is to ask yourself five questions:
Did it make me gasp when I first saw it? Do I wish I had thought of it myself? Is
it unique? Does it fit the strategy to perfection? Could it be used for 30 years?
Other tips that Ogilvy gives on producing successful advertising is to make the product
the hero of your advertising. The writer needs to be personally interested in the product
to write a good advertisement. When products seem no different from competitors, you
have to explain the virtues of the product more persuasively than your competitors, and
differentiate them by the style of advertising – this is added value. Another tip is that if
you write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Also, Ogilvy says to avoid
committees, learn from what direct response advertisers do, and only use sex if there is a
functional reason.
Next, Ogilvy focuses on jobs in advertising and how to get them. He only knows
about jobs in agencies. At the start of your advertising career, Ogilvy says that what you
learn is more important than what you earn. He then gives descriptions of jobs in an
agency. Copyrighters are the most important people in agencies. Art directors must have
some training in film, layout, photography, and typography. Account executives are the
ones who are in daily touch with clients, the most informed person in the agency on the
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account given, must be able to make good presentations and write lucid memoranda. To
get this job, Ogilvy recommends first spending a couple years in brand management and
a year in a consumer research company. Another job is researchers, who probably need a
degree in statistics or psychology, an analytical mind, and must be intellectually honest.
Other jobs are in the media department, chief executive officer, and creative director
(Ogilvy’s job).
Ogilvy then moves on to tell how to run an advertising agency. First of all, you
have to make it fun to work in your agency. All of the accounts you work on are from
different industries so every time you see a client you have to be sufficiently beefed on
their business to give good advice. There are two ways to get paid: the traditional
commission system or the fee system, which Ogilvy pioneered.
Next, Ogilvy describes how to get clients. Ogilvy says that the easiest way to get
clients is to do good advertising. When you meet with a prospective client, tell them
what your weak points are before they notice them because it will make you seem more
credible.
Also, avoid clients whose ethos is different than your company. It is very
hard for small agencies to get big accounts, but the bigger an agency grow, the more
bureaucratic it becomes.
The next chapter tells Ogilvy’s tips that he has learned on print advertising.
Agency people find making television commercials far more exciting than making ads for
magazines and newspaper. Unless the headline sells the product, you have wasted 90 per
cent of your money. The headlines that work best are the ones that promise the reader a
benefit, or contain news such as the announcement of a new product. If the
advertisement is aimed at a small group of people, put something in the headline to signal
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them, such as women over thirty-five. Ogilvy also gives many tips on how make your
illustrations work, with some of the most helpful being:
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Have a good subject for your illustration.
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Use story appeal if you can and if not, use your package as the subject of the
illustration.
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Use before and after photographs to show the end result of using the product.
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Keep the illustration simple and focus on one person.
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Use four color advertisements even though they cost more.
Ogilvy also gives advice on the body copy of the advertisement. Some of his tips are:
write as if you are writing each reader a letter, write short sentences and avoid difficult
words, write the copy in the form of a story, do not use brag and boast (my product the
best), make the first paragraph grab the attention of the reader, and use testimonials
which are more persuasive than puffery. When laying out an advertisement, Ogilvy
describes it as KISS (keep it simple, stupid). A person reads an advertisement by first
looking at the illustration, then the headline, and then the copy so put them in this order
on an advertisement.
If there is a functional reason to run a double spread, such as when
a product has to be shown horizontally, then use a double spread; otherwise, do not.
Without a double spread, twice as many advertisements can be run for the same amount
of money, which doubles the reach of the ad.
Ogilvy then moves to making televisions commercials that sell. Ogilvy’s
experience in television is not near as much as print advertising, so he relies heavily on
research for his information on television advertisements. Above average commercials
have: humor, slice of life, testimonials with loyal users, demonstrations, problem
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solution, talking heads, characters, reason why, news, and emotion. Some tips he gives
about making successful television commercials are using brand identification, show the
package, sing it if you have nothing to say, and show the product in use.
The next area Ogilvy focuses on is advertising corporations. By using corporate
advertising, it can improve the morale of the employees and can make a good impression
on the investment community. Lots of corporate campaigns fail because they are underfunded. Another reason they fail is because by confining the campaign to just magazines
and newspapers. Ogilvy advises corporations to not change their name to initials because
it will take many years and lots of money to teach the initials to the public.
Ogilvy then addresses how to advertise foreign travel. A classical campaign in
travel advertising is Doyle Dane Bernbach’s (DDB) Jamaica campaign. When Ogilvy
started an ad campaign for Britain, it was the fifth most visited European country by the
time he wrote this book it was first. His tips on foreign advertising are advertising for
countries should be designed to plant a long term image in the reader’s mind. Also,
choose to illustrate things that are unique to the country concerned and not something
people can do at home. The job of the advertising is to convert people’s dreams about
visiting foreign countries into action. Ogilvy says this is best done by combining
“mouth-watering photographs with specific how-to-do-it information” (Ogilvy 133).
Whenever the advertising is for a little known country, it is important to give the people a
lot of information in the advertisement such as the weather, language, food, etc. Charm
and differentiation work well in tourism advertising.
His next chapter focuses on business-to-business advertising. This type of
advertising is for products that people buy for their companies, not for themselves.
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Ogilvy says that the advertising techniques that work in business-to-business advertising
are the same as the ones that work for consumer advertising, such as promising the reader
a benefit, news, testimonials, and helpful information. When you promise something,
make sure it is important to the customer and make the promise specific. Testimonials
work well when they come from experts in reputable companies. News also works well
because readers scan technical journals when looking for new products, so be sure to
announce your news. Also, long copy actually attracts more readers than short copy.
Business-to-business advertisers are turning increasingly to television because audiences
of sports and news programs include a high percentage of business people.
The next medium of advertising Ogilvy talks about is direct mail, which he calls
his secret weapon. He talks about how direct mail has exploded, which at the time this
book was written is the early 1980s. Direct mail today is still the top medium of
advertising. Ogilvy explains how the explosion was cause by computers which made it
possible to get names from mailing lists. An advantage of using direct mail advertising is
that the results of the mailings can be measured to the dollar. . With direct mail, every
variable can be tested to determine exactly its effect on sales, but only test one variable at
a time. Once a profitable mailing has been created, treat it as a control to find new
variables to beat it. Direct response advertising can also be used in magazines and
television by getting people to send their orders directly without going to a store. The
right kind of television commercial- ones that set up a problem and demonstrate how the
product can solve it, give a money back guarantee, or promise benefits- can persuade
people to order their products by mail or telephone. Ogilvy reminds readers that there is
no correlation between the size of the audience the number of orders received. Ogilvy
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recommends reading other books about direct response because each chapter of his book
is an over-simplification of a complicated subject.
The next chapter, titled “18 Miracles of research,” talks about the importance of
research. Before Ogilvy became a copywriter, he was a researcher. Some helpful things
research can do are:
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Measure the reputation of the company among consumers.
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Estimate the sales of new product and the advertising required to achieve
maximum profits.
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Get consumer reactions to a new product
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Show how consumers rate the product compared with product they are now
buying
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What color, flavor, etc will appeal to most consumers
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Tell which package design will sell the best.
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Help decide the optimum positioning for the product
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Define the target audience.
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Discover what factors are most important in the purchase decision.
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Warn when consumers show signs of finding an established product less desirable
than it once was.
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Save time and money by reading the competitor’s test markets.
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Determine the most persuasive promise. Try to find a promise that is persuasive
and unique.
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Tells whether the advertising communicates what you want it to communicate.
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Tell you which of several television commercials will sell the most. Ogilvy
prefers testing methods which measure the commercial’s ability to change brand
preferences. It can also measure the ‘wear-out’ of the advertising.
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Finally, research can tell how many people read the advertisements and how
many remember them.
Research can make your advertising produce more sales. One answer that research
cannot answer is what price should be charged for the product. Split-run, not favored by
researchers because it does not require their services, is a technique which Ogilvy prefers.
This is when two advertisements are written with different promise in the each headline
and see which one gets more response from a free sample offer. Few copywriters share
Ogilvy’s likely for research. Among those who did not was Bill Bernbach, who thought
research inhibited creativity. Ogilvy explains that his experience has been the opposite;
research often led Ogilvy to good ideas, such as the eye patch in the Hathaway shirt
campaign.
Ogilvy next addresses marketing, which he claims to know little about. Ogilvy
defines marketing as objectivity. With new products, Ogilvy says that one can judge the
vitality of a company by the number of new products it brings to the market. Some
products which sell well without being advertised might sell better, and make more
profit, with advertising. An example Ogilvy uses of this is with Listerine because they
sold modest amounts without advertising but when they started advertising, sales went
through the roof. Advertising should be treated as a production cost, not a selling cost.
When you are marketing products, focus on the heavy users. Also, consumers do not buy
just one brand of soap, coffee, etc. They have a repertory of four of five brands, and
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move from one to another. The goal of advertising is to get those who already use the
product at least occasionally, to use it more frequently.
Ogilvy also spends time in his book to talk about six people who invented modern
advertising. All of them were American, had other jobs before they went into
advertising, were perfectionists, four made their reputations as copywriters, and only
three had university degrees. These six people were:
1. Albert Lasker (Lord & Thomas, Ogilvy said that Lasker made more money than
anyone in the history of the advertising business)
2. Stanley Resor (J. Walter Thompson, was the first agency chief to start a network of
offices outside the United States)
3. Raymond Rubicam (founded Young & Rubicam)
4. Leo Burnett (leader of Chicago school of advertising, famous Marlboro campaign)
5. Claude Hopkins (advocate of ‘hard sell,’ and said importance of brand images)
6. Bill Bernbach (DDB)
To end his book, Ogilvy records 13 changes that he predicts. Most of these
changes did not hold true, such as billboards will be abolished. Yet some changes did
occur, such as the “quality of research will improve” (Ogilvy 217). Overall, Ogilvy’s
book is like an information book on all aspects of advertising that he has learned over the
years.
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Review of Ogilvy on Advertising
Although Ogilvy on Advertising was written in 1983, this book is a classic book
about advertising. Most of the information in it is still useful for people today in
advertising and are still applicable to the advertising world today. The principles and
guidelines in his book still have not changed today, such as his methods for producing
successful print advertising. The book is great at giving examples of everything Ogilvy
talks about with all of the advertisement examples in the book. Whenever he talks about
a certain point, such as Dove being designed to target women, he puts in an example of
an advertisement used. The advertisements in the book also make it a lot more
interesting to read.
Some areas of weakness with his book applying to today is that it does not
address the new medium of advertising, the internet and the sophistication of technology
today. Some of the advice Ogilvy gives on types of fonts to use in advertisements is
outdated, because now everyone is familiar with all the fonts and can read them.
Although there are some weaknesses in this book, it is a great book for learning about
advertising from a very successful man, especially on producing print advertising. I
would recommend this book to advertising students to read because it is a “classic that
should be dog eared and worn” (amazon.com).
One reviewer on Amazon.com who is an advertising professor described Ogilvy’s
book as a must read advertising book, with his ideas being timeless and his writing
captivating.
Teachout for the National Review wrote how Ogilvy’s other book Confessions of
an Advertising Man was heavy on autobiography and stingy on illustrations but in Ogilvy
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on Advertising, he readdresses this imbalance. It provides no fewer than 185 ads with
explanations of why they did or did not work. He said that everyone should relax and
enjoy this intelligently designed book. I must agree with the reviewers and recommend
Ogilvy on Advertising to any thinking about going into the advertising business. It is an
easy to read book with lots of useful information about advertising.
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Works Cited
Amazon.com reviews, Accessed July 15, 2006
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039472903X/sr=81/qid=1153059995/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0285501-4559209?ie=UTF8
“David Ogilvy: History.” Accessed July 15, 2006 from
http://www.ciadvertising.org/studies/student/98_fall/theory/clark/two/history.html
“History of David Ogilvy.” Accessed July 16, 2006 from http://www.ogilvy.com/history/
Teachout, Terry. “Books in Brief.” National Review 8 Feb 1985. Volume 37, Issue 2.
pg 61. Accessed July 15, 2006 from Academic Search Premier.